Much of the early conversation about the legal industry’s use of AI focused on how lawyers could use it for tasks such as research, drafting, case preparation, and analysis. Those tasks remain important, but they are increasingly only one part of the discussion. As businesses and individuals integrate AI into their operations, new legal questions are emerging around evidence, liability, transparency, automated transactions, and the reliability of AI-generated information.
For arbitration and mediation professionals, understanding AI has become essential to navigating a changing dispute-resolution landscape and responding thoughtfully as new issues emerge.
That desire for understanding is the core idea behind the American Arbitration Association’s AI Ambassador program. The program brings together experienced AAA arbitrators and mediators with diverse areas of expertise to identify emerging AI-related legal and procedural issues early and translate what they see in practice into practical guidance and resources for the ADR community. Through white papers, webinars, articles, and other educational materials, the AI Ambassadors will explore emerging questions and share insights to help ADR users, counsel, arbitrators, and mediators navigate them.
Many of the questions surrounding the use of AI do not yet have settled answers, and as the technology continues to evolve, so will the questions it raises. Waiting for established practices to emerge risks leaving the legal community in a reactive position, allowing technology or technologists to shape the answers rather than legal professionals confronting these issues, or leaving difficult questions unresolved until they arise in active disputes.
The AI Ambassador program gives AAA arbitrators and mediators a way to begin the broader discussion and examine existing questions. The participating arbitrators and mediators are central to the program, as they see firsthand how changes in technology can affect parties, evidence, legal arguments, and the conduct of a proceeding. The AI Ambassador’s work is organized around four areas that reflect how AI is beginning to intersect with disputes and dispute resolution:
AI Evidence & Arbitration Procedure
Emerging AI Disputes
AI-Driven Commerce & Automated Transactions
Digital Assets & Algorithmic Finance
Collectively, these four areas capture both how AI is creating new types of disputes and how it is changing the way those and other disputes are resolved, while focusing on areas where the AAA has strong expertise and a meaningful opportunity to provide practical thought leadership.
The goal is not simply to identify emerging issues, but to translate what the AI Ambassadors learn into practical guidance. Their work can help neutrals better understand questions they may encounter, give counsel and parties greater insight into how AI may intersect with dispute resolution, and bring an ADR perspective to the legal community’s broader conversation about AI.
Building Expertise as the Technology Evolves
The issues confronting arbitrators and mediators several years from now may look very different from those they encounter today. Rather than trying to predict where the technology will go, the AI Ambassador program creates a forum for experienced practitioners to examine developments as they occur, exchange perspectives, and develop resources that can evolve alongside them.
As AI becomes more deeply embedded in legal workflows, business operations, and commercial relationships, the challenge for the ADR community will be to adapt while preserving the principles at the heart of effective dispute resolution: fairness, neutrality, efficiency, due process, and trust.
The AI Ambassador program complements the AAA’s broader work to advance the responsible use of AI in dispute resolution by focusing on how the technology is changing disputes and the questions facing parties, counsel, and neutrals. By bringing experienced practitioners into that conversation, the AAA is helping build the knowledge and practical understanding the ADR community will need to navigate what comes next.